Hun­dreds take refuge in pool af­ter hot wave

MT DRUITT pool was in­un­dated with hun­dreds of visi­tors as tem­per­a­tures soared over 40C on Fri­day.

A spokesman for Mt Druitt pool said it had been one of the cen­tre’s busiest days. “It has been very busy here so far and we are still ex­pect­ing more peo­ple to come later in the day,” he said on Fri­day.

The Sleep fam­ily, of Rooty Hill, said Mt Druitt pool was the per­fect place to cool down.

“It was too hot to be at school, or any­where else,” Ta­mara, 12, said.

A Bureau of Me­te­o­rol­ogy spokesman said the mer­cury hit al­most 42C on Fri­day.

“Western Sydney recorded tem­per­a­tures over 40C, it was 41.9C in Pen­rith at 2.30pm on Fri­day, how­ever tem­per­a­tures started to cool about 9pm,” he said.

The spokesman said the record tem­per­a­ture was noted in Novem­ber last year at 44.9C. This week will con­tinue to be hot but we won’t see the tem­per­a­tures hit a swel­ter­ing 40C for a while.

“Tem­per­a­tures will be hit­ting the 30Cs this week but it will cool down to­wards the end of the week for the week­end,” the spokesman said.